The troubadour wanders. He’s a solitary sort and his eye is always on the horizon. There’s a lot of world to see and a lot of stories to be told in song about its vistas, its nooks and crannies, its recesses and splays of light. The troubadour is drawn to all of them. He inhabits them. They come to inhabit him and the world through song is defined and articulated in the grace of his poetry.

Bruce Cockburn is a modern day troubadour. He has been for 43 years and 37 albums. Now, at 67, he’s about to release a DVD featuring documentary and solo performance called Pacing The Cage. The songs are culled from performances off 2009’s Slice of Life CD and he likens the forthcoming DVD to a conversation.

“It’s me, a microphone and several guitars,” he said. “The solo thing allows for a greater rapport with the audience. Between takes there’s nothing but me and them and I tend to talk more. I like the solo performance for that – that ability to talk with audience with no one to hide behind.”

“It’s me, a microphone and several guitars”

The DVD includes the documentary of the same name done for Vision TV in 2012 along with musical performances. A second DVD, which is entirely a concert film, will feature the performances on the Vision TV version of Pacing The Cage plus many not in the film or on the live album, Slice of Life.

“Those who like the solo thing will love this and those who prefer a band might not enjoy it as much. But the good news is that we can still come back and do a band DVD sometime in the future.”

Not surprising. In his career he’s moved from the boho acoustic thing of his beginnings, to full band albums, back to philosophical/spiritual musing, to angry rants, only to return to pacific, spiritual wonder again. Those who have followed him through the length and breadth of his recorded career, “some of whom are still alive,” will find much to savor. The performances on Pacing the Cage hit signposts all along that journey.

See, he’s wandered through Europe, Central America, Japan, Africa and across the U.S and Canada. These days he’s found hunkered down in San Francisco with a new wife and a 14-month-old daughter named Iona. He’s been there for varying chunks of time over the last three years. He sounds peaceful, rested and optimistic.

“The city fits me really well in a limited way,” he said. “When we were in New York, I really liked it there with its feeling of impending chaos. It had a really dark, almost post-Apocalyptic feel that was inspiring.”

“The city of San Francisco though, is an anomaly. It’s this beautiful kind of yuppie enclave surrounded by miles and miles of redneckery. But you don’t feel that in the city. It’s just so liberal here and beautiful and I’m sure there is that same aura of impending chaos, but you have to search for it.”

When it comes to songwriting he doesn’t know how the new atmosphere will inspire him. He hasn’t written any songs. Instead, he’s in the process of a first draft of a memoir, a kind of writing that’s new to him and presents its own degree of difficulty. He calls it a ‘spiritual’ memoir and fans of songs like Mystery from 2004’s Life Short Call Now will be drawn to it.

Bruce Cockburn plays in an afternoon workshop at the Canmore Folk Music . Photo by Pam Doyle

“The book’s turned into a much bigger project than I thought it would be. When you write a song it’s a short-term phenomenon. The flash comes or it doesn’t come and if there’s no flash there’s no song.”

“But with a book you have to sustain the energy and the focus. The thought process is carried over for a much extended period. It’s challenging for me but as time goes on it becomes a little less so. It’s moving along well now and my deadline for the first draft is the end of July.”

While there’s no word on a publication date, beyond a best guess of somewhere over a year, he’s confident as you’d expect a prolific songwriter to be. A look back at significant albums in his oeuvre always shows a superb craftsman able to wring telling nuance, truth or vitriolic upset out of a lyric.

“It’s not like I’m writing songs all the time. I write when I get an idea or an inspiration and when I have enough songs to put an album together we go into the studio and create an album.”

“But if I write songs over a period of time they’re going to reflect what’s going on in that period of time. They acquire a kind of dramatic consistency because of that.”

Indeed. One need only look back to 1980’s Humans say, or 2003’s You’ve Never Seen Everything to understand the truth of that. While critics have not always been enamored of his caustic, plain spoken, ‘journalistic’ or ‘documentary’ style of songwriting, his fans always have been.

Humans has been referred to as his masterpiece with You’ve Never Seen Everything mere steps behind that. The former was typified by gut level honesty about the end of a relationship while the latter was more politically driven. In both cases the songwriting was what provided the impetus for both albums.

What About the Bond from Humans and Trickle Down from You’ve Never Seen Everything are prototypical examples of a probing intellect driving a questing social conscience that’s tempered by a genuine moral and spiritual frankness. It’s what’s taken him on remarkable journeys and what’s brought the troubadour forward in his work.

“I feel as though I’ve lived actually lived several lifetimes in this one.

“I feel as though I’ve lived actually lived several lifetimes in this one. There’s a line of continuity through everything and even though I feel I’m essentially the same person as I was when I started, I’ve learned an awful lot about a lot of stuff.”

“Our failing as human beings is not being able to see the divine energy that’s everywhere all around us. We need to remind ourselves of that. Remind each other.”

Spoken like a genuine troubadour. The DVD, Pacing The Cage arrives in early May.

I am a published author with eleven titles published by major Canadian publishers. I am a First Nations person from the Ojibway Nation in Northwestern, Ontario, Canada. As a professional writer since ... read more1979 I have written for newspaper, radio television, magazines and book publishing. I love the culture of books and the people who populate it. 2012 recipient of the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Media & Communications.View author's profile